Beijing Zoo - History

History

The zoo grounds was originally an imperial manor during the Ming Dynasty that became part of the estate of the general Fukang'an during the Qing Dynasty. In 1906, the Imperial Ministry for Agricultural, Industry and Commerce established an experimental farm, which held a small menagerie. The Viceroy of Liangjiang, Duanfang, purchased a batch animals from Germany and deposited them there. The animal collection attracted great interest when the farm opened to visitors in 1908. The Empress Dowager and the Emperor Guangxu both visited the zoo twice. The farm was known as the Wanshouyuan or the "Garden of Ten Thousand Beasts".

Among the historical buildings at the zoo is Changguanlou, a Baroque-style country-palace of the Empress Dowager designed by a French architect and built in 1908, and it remains one of the best preserved Western-style palaces in China.

After the Qing Dynasty was overthrown in 1911, the zoo became a national botanical garden during the Republic of China. During the Second Sino-Japanese War, many of the zoo's animals died of starvation and some were poisoned by the Japanese Army. Only 13 monkeys and one old emu survived the war. In the 1930s with French aid, Lamarck Hall, named after the botanist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, was built at the experimental farm and housed plant research.

After Beijing became the capital of the People's Republic of China in 1949, the city government renamed the Beijing Agricultural Experimentation Center the Western Suburban Park (西郊公园), and began gradually rebuilding the zoo. In 1952, national leaders Mao Zedong, Zhu De, and Ren Bishi donated their war horses to the park. The park was renamed the Beijing Zoo in 1955. The zoo sent staff to study zoo management in the Soviet Union and Poland, and began to trade animals with Eastern Bloc countries, Japan, Burma, India, and Indonesia to expand its collection. Leading Chinese universities also established research presence in the zoo to study animal behavior and to breed endangered species.

The zoo's development came to an abrupt halt during the Cultural Revolution as zoo staff were purged, research work stopped and contacts with foreign zoos were severed. In the 1970s, as China forged diplomatic relations with the Western bloc, the zoo received animal gifts from the United States, France, United Kingdom, Mexico, Spain, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Australia. For example, the musk-oxen and black rhinoceros were sent by USA as gifts, Indian rhinoceros were sent by Nepal, West Indian manatee and Baird's tapir were sent by Mexico, Malayan tapir were sent by Thailand, Indo-Chinese tiger were sent by Cambodia, Western lowland gorilla were sent by Spain and Japan, Japanese serow were sent by Japan, and European Brown Bear were sent by France. The zoo also organized a four-year mission to Ethiopia, Kenya, and Tanzania, which brought back 157 species and 1,000 animals including giraffe, African elephant, zebra, wildebeest, oryx, ostrich, Thompson's and Grant's Gazelle, Geochelone tortoises, baboon, and aardvark.

During the 1984 Summer Olympics, the Beijing Zoo sent a pair of Giant Pandas, Yingxin and Yong Yong to Los Angeles for an exhibition. In 1987, Yong Yong and Ling Ling went on exhibition at the Bronx Zoo.

The zoo used to have some fantastic species on exhibit, for example: an Asian golden cat with a stripe pattern resembling an Ocelot, which came from Sichuan Province; the Chinese Desert Cat which is endemic to the mountains of centre China; White-headed langur which is endemic to the Karst forest of Guangxi, southern China; Capped langur from southwest China; Wild Bactrian camel from the Gobi of northwest China; Wild Yak from Qinghai, west China; Binturong, Large Indian civet, Chinese pangolin, Saiga AntelopeChamois, Lowland Anoa, Aardvark, Lesser kudu, Leatherback sea turtle and Komodo dragon, sadly however, they were all gone. The marvelous Chinese Monal died out around 2010 in the zoo; the Clouded leopard and the last Western lowland gorilla also died around the same time.

On the other hand, there are also some encouraging achievements. Some of the species are bred successfully in the zoo, such as Giant panda, Red panda, golden snob-nosed monkey, Yunnan snob-nosed monkey, Golden takin, Crested Ibis, Black-necked Crane, Siberian Crane and so on. Large scale reconstruction and improvements are under their ways in the zoo, the newly constructed exhibits include South American exhibit, polar bear exhibit, birds of prey exhibit, Malay tapir exhibit and otter pool.